


Fear.

by ShabbyChicGeek3



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Budapest, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 00:11:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2526812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShabbyChicGeek3/pseuds/ShabbyChicGeek3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was the first story I posted on FanFiction, and I don't know, I always felt it was unappreciated, because I really like it and it hardly got any views. Am I insane? Is it a great story? You tell me! A different interpretation of what "Budapest" could have meant, and Clintasha bandaging each other up after New York.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear.

**Author's Note:**

> Please review. It seriously will take one moment out of your day, and really cheer up mine.

I sit in the room of the too cold hotel, on the too soft bed. I have been in thousands of hotel rooms, and they all blend together not because of the amount I have been in, but because of the similarities between them. The neutral colors, the slick bed spread, the dingy carpet, they are all the same. Many people asociate hotel rooms with vacations and fun- I associate them with fights to the death and assassinations. And Clint. Clint- I look towards the closed bathroom door, he said he was just going to freshen up, but I have an awful suspicion he is jut trying to hide the extent of his wounds from me. And after today, after New York, I am sure his wounds must be as spectacular as my own.

I press an ice pack to the bruises blossoming across my torso as I flip through the channels on TV. Cooking. Sports. Children's. Today every channel may as well be identical as they showcase the catastrophes from the battle of New York. I see the same footage over and over again. Aliens gushing from the hole in the sky, Tony flying through that same hole, a bomb pressed to his back. Thor slamming his hammer down. Captain Rogers is showcased quite a bit, saving pedestrians and killing aliens, and of course the Hulk gets a hefty portion of footage as he crushes everything in his path. Of course Clint and I are missing from all the footage. Thanks to special shield software if our images are ever inserted into any type of Internet or satellite download they are instantly wiped out. So why do I still search every frame of video they are showing, hoping I will see my partner or myself? Because deep down I sometimes wish we could get credit for what we do?

Then Loki is shown on screen, using his glowing death stick to level a skyscraper. I turn off the TV and walk towards the bathroom door, I knock on it. "Clint? You ok?" "Fine! I am fine Tasha!" He doesn't sound fine, but I am in no shape to argue with him. I turn away from the door, when I hear a stifled moan that normal ears would probably not be able to detect. I pick the door knob in less than ten seconds, and get inside. And see a nightmare.

"Oh Clint!" I gasp in horror. Then I am yelling. "Why didn't you tell me? I should be helping you!" Curled up on the floor of the shower, Clint can only moan as bloody water pools around him. His back looks as if it is a pincushion, with rivulets of blood streaming down it and small hardly formed scabs indicate where glass is burrowed beneath his flesh. Under his normal scars I see new nicks and cuts, and gashes and scrapes. He has roughly the same amount of bruises I do, but in a wider array of colors. I hate to see him hurting:and I am mad. "Get up!" I shout at him furiously. "Get up you total Ass! Why didn't you tell me? You should be in a hospital you idiot!" He tries to protest as I help him up off the shower floor. "Nat, it's fine. I can do this, I didn't want to worry you." As he stands gravity forces more blood to cascade down his body, his pants are drenched in his own blood. I worry about how much he has lost- Should I get him to Shield for a blood transfusion? We both share a hatred for doctors and hospitals, until he absolutely needs more help, I will take care of him. No matter how mad I am at him right now, I will help. And he knows that. And I kind of hate hime for knowing that.

"Get out!" I order sharply. In spite of my harsh words I am as gentle as I can be with him, easing his battered body from under the steaming shower, forcing him sit on the closed toilet. "You idiot!" I seethe scornfully. "You have to remove the shrapnel before cleaning the wounds. I should have started helping you with this the minute we were done fighting!" He sighs, "I know Tash, I know... I just didn't want to worry you and- AURGH!" His body convulses as I pull out a hunk of twisted metal that was sticking out of a knot in his back. I bite my lip, ignore the fact I am causing him more pain. He needs to get this done, and now before an infection sets in. "Geez Nat, you could have warned me first!" I order him to shut up, as I leave the room to find my medkit.

It takes hours to remove every piece of glass and metal from his back, and bandage his wounds. When I am finally done removing the shrapnel and begin to swab every individual cut with stinging iodine, we try to talk to help him forget the smarting of his back. But of course nothing can really help. When I have bandaged him up, I help him clean the rest of his wounds, then wait in the bathroom as he showers in case he needs my help. This is the closest we have been since Loki invaded him and everything feels different. Strained. But when he is done and I have helped him into pajamas, we lay in the same bed as if nothing has changed. It is not for romance, it is for the feeling of being close to someone. For the feeling of being safe. In this moment everything is different, everything is the same.

We are silent for a bit before he speaks. "I am sorry Nat. About everything. About Loki, about the fight, I should have stayed by you. We fight together. I shouldn't have let us be separated. If something had gone wrong-" "No Clint!" I soothe him. "We had to separate, it's what was best for the mission, you know that! And everything worked fine. Look, we are both here. It all worked out." He nods and we just lay besides each other for a while, enjoying the company. I look at his face, once again trying to memorize it. I have come so close to losing him so many times, and I never want to forget him. I am so scared I will forget him. That one day he will be gone, then I will forget him and have to lose him a second time. We lie besides each other for what feels like hours, eventually I wind up curled in his arms, things feel almost normal in the darkness. Then, when I am almost asleep, he speaks.

"Nat? What did you mean about Budapest earlier? Because I was trying to remember and- I don't think we ever worked Budapest together."

 

-originally a chapter cut was here, but whatever-

The room feels far too small all of a sudden, I can't breathe. I can still hear the air conditioning running under the window, but my body is unexplainably drenched in a sudden sweat. "Nat?" Clint's voice is soft, but has just a hint of irritation beneath it. I know him, gosh I probably know him better than anyone else in the world. And now I know he will weedle and smooth talk, argue and rage until I tell him what I meant about Budapest. Usually that would be fine, but now, in his condition, I just can't let him do all of that.

I sit up and shove the blankets off of myself, although all I want to do is hide. "Fine, yes I know we never worked Budapest together." I spit the words out quickly. Maybe if I am smart enough I can fool him with a lie. "I said today reminded me of Budapest because, as you probably guessed, I had a mission there once. There was a gang called the aliens and I had to fight them, it was me and agent, Agent Hemsworth. The gang had high tech weapons, and we took them down. That's all." I can lie to a thousand people, it's what I do. It's in my job description, in my file I am sure the word Liar is fit snug between the words Assasian and Spy. But I can't lie to him. I try, but he always sees through me.

I don't look at Clint, I feel him sitting up besides me. If I make eye contact he will know I am lying for sure. He grunts as the effort of moving no doubt sounds waves of pain through him. "Nat, that is the biggest pack of BS you have ever told me. I know you, and I know when you are telling the truth, and unlike most everyone else in the world, I know when you are lying. So come on. Spill it Romanoff."

Great. This is so not what I want right now. I press my heated face into my hands, I still can't look at him. As I remember when I went to Budapest, when I think of how I exploited a weakness when I even mentioned it to him, my insides churn sickeningly. "I don't want to talk about it." I tell him this hoping he will roll over and resume sleep. Or resume pretending to sleep. He doesn't.

I jerk away as a cool hand grasps my arm, Clint wraps one of his hands around mine. For a split second I feel invincible, like I could do anything, just because I know he is at my side. The feeling quickly fades. "Tash, come on, can't you just tell me? You know I won't judge you. I won't laugh, I won't get mad, come on. I'm your partner.

We squeeze each others hands so hard, that if we were normal people I am sure a bone would snap. But we aren't normal people. We aren't. I have told Clint almost everything about my past. He knows about every fragmented memory I have of before the Red Room, when I wake up screaming he knows what my nightmares are, he knows that every single time I kill, I feel like I am losing another piece of my humanity. So why haven't I told him about Budapest? Because I am scared? Because love is for children, and a weakness I can not indulge in?

I slide my hand out of his, and move to sit on the end of the bed. Clint moves to do the same, but I push him back. "No, don't aggravate your wounds by moving around. It will only make things worse. Lay down." "Fine Nurse Bossy," he smirks halfheartedly at me as he eases himself back against the headboard of the bed.

Intaking a deep breath, I focus my eyes on a crack in the wall above the TV, and start talking.

"You know that when I was first working for Shield, I wasn't trusted. At all. I know you were only made my partner so that you could keep an eye on me. I mean, that was obvious. And at first, well, I hated you. But you know that. It wasn't until our second or third year together that I started to be ok around you, and you know it was a while after that that I considered you- a friend. "

We are both silent at this statement. My heart is pounding in my fingertips. Silence hangs heavy between us, I have never acknowledged that I consider Clint a friend. We have been through Hell a thousand times together. We have cleaned each other's wounds. We watch movies together, we know everything about each other. I hate that I am so horribly damaged that it has taken me this long to admit he is important to me. I hate that I am so damaged. So broken.

I continue before I lose my nerve. "Well, you remember when we started getting missions apart from each other. How tough it was to convince the council that we should be permanent partners. You know I have had over a hundred solo mission, give or take a few. I haven't told you about every one of them, and you probably haven't told me about all of yours." My nails are digging into my palms, leaving behind little crescent moons in my skin. "Five years ago I was sent to Budapest. It was supposed to be an easy mission, get in, get some information, get out. But- it went wrong. "

I smile thinly at the wall. "That's not so abnormal, missions go wrong. We get faulty information, agents slip up, injuries occur, it happens. But this time it was different. I was sloppy. I cut corners, didn't cover my trail as throughly as I should have. I had stolen the file we needed, I thought I had made my escape. I had gone eight minutes out before realizing I was being followed. I still don't know what information was in the file I took, but it must have been extremely important. There were over twenty guys, all of them determined to pry that file from my hands, or die trying.

Thin trickles of blood stream from where my nails bite into my palms. Red in my ledger. How much of it did I wipe out today? Not enough. Never enough. "I had killed about half of them, when I ran out of bullets. I was shot in my leg, and almost got shot in the head a couple times. I was so tired, I was almost ready to give up. I didn't see how I could escape and I- I thought-" My eyes are burning. My throat is closing. "I thought I was going to die. I was so sure that I was going to die. And do you know what?" I feel a drop fall from my burning eyes down my face. "I thought of you. In my last moments, I was thinking of you. I was so sure a bullet was going to hit me any second, and all I wanted was to see you again.

Intaking a shuddering breathe, I can't look at Barton. I can't. "I was scared Clint, I was so scared that I would die in some god forsaken alley, that I would become an unclaimed corpse in a Budapest morgue. And I was scared that I would lose you if I died. And Clint," I hate every tear running down my face. "The past few days I thought I would lose you again. You were gone. I had failed you. We were supposed to be partners and I let you get kidnapped like a freakin weakling."

I swipe at my eyes with the heels of my palms. "And today, again I was scared. I was so scared. Again I was fighting what seemed like an undefeatable army, one that wouldn't stop coming and attacking. And again, I thought I would lose you. But this time- this time I was ok with it. Because I thought that today if I died, maybe you would too. And we would never have to live without each other."

I am trying to stop the tears, I have not let anyone see me cry since- ever. Not really cry. Not cry because of an emotion instead of because of torture or pain. Even when Clint has woken me from nightmares, I have been in a dry panic. Occasionally screaming, usually I just lock up and shake uncontrollably. He has never seen me cry. He is sitting up again, He looks like he has just been broken and placed back together. Now. Now would be time to tell him that I love him. For him to admit he loves me.

But I don't.

And he doesn't.

Instead he holds out his arms for me, and as I am wrapped in his gentle embrace, I am crying again. Releasing up the emotions of the last few days. Of losing him and having to work with a bunch of idiots who I had never fought with before. Of confronting Loki and having dark parts of my soul bared so casually. Of having to fight Clint, thinking I was going to kill him. Then I cry for the mess that is my life. For the red in my ledger. The childhood I lost. The family I never knew, the families I destroyed with my gun. I cry until I am empty. I feel awful for showing this weakness. But I also feel free.

As my crying slowly ebbs away, I realize that maybe I have just learned a new strength. That maybe I am finally able to be strong, by showing that I am weak.

As he wipes away my tears, I feel more red is being cleansed from my ledger.

As his arms are wrapped around me, I feel that maybe I am finally safe.

And when he kisses me, I think that maybe, just maybe, love is not just for children.

And if it is, then I am a child.


End file.
